


daemon!verse ficlets

by andlightplay



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemon, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-01
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2017-11-17 13:40:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 16,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andlightplay/pseuds/andlightplay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What it says on the tin! Daemon!AUs are a weakness of mine. Each chapter is it's own ficlet, and they'll get updated at random times as I add more.</p><p>(NOTE: the archive warnings only relate to chapter 2 (and it's a nightmare, not reality), and, as of 9.03, chapter 11, but we all know how that turns out : ) )</p><p>(SON OF NOTE: the 'Explicit' rating is because of chapter 7 :D )</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tueri (weechesters)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dean's daemon Tsalia is a [cougar](http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/9ef90871f3c54e5ab3a913e5186303514ab3819fb6cc7645eb58f9eb179762b64g.jpg).

Most kids have happy memories of their childhoods, chasing younger siblings or daemons around the house or garden or park and shrieking with laughter, throwing themselves into the grass or the couch cushions and play-fighting wildly with a little brother who giggled when you tickled him in the ribs or a daemon who delighted in seeing how fast she could change shape or how many different things she could become when she did, and then wandering back home to a warm house and a kitchen full of delicious smells and a mother who laughed and ruffled your hair. 

Dean knows he had those things, even thinks he remembers them sometimes, but mostly what he remembers is the screaming, inhuman howl of his mother’s daemon from the nursery, his father shoving Sammy into his arms and telling him to go, his wolfhound-daemon Tristram herding Dean towards the stairs and the weird, stomach-twisting wrongness of her head butting against his back, urging him forward, while his own Tsalia darted ahead as a bird to show him the way, little body faltering and falling every time she and Dean felt Tristram’s touch. 

Pretty much as soon as he’d been old enough to understand what Dad did when he went away and why, he’d realised there was nothing stopping the same thing from happening to him too, and Tsalia had spent the nights as another wolfhound, curled up tight to him and licking away his tears. Each time time John left them, Tsalia stayed a wolfhound until he came back, then pretended she’d been a cat or a hawk or a dragon, Dean too embarrassed to admit that he had worried for his father and already knowing that John wanted to see him as the strong one, the one he could trust with Sammy’s care.

When Dean was about ten, Tsalia started spending more and more time as a wolf, flicking to other shapes but always reverting to that one like she was already halfway-settled. A few months or so later it was an Alsatian, then a lioness, and then Dean woke up on the first day after his twelfth birthday they started a new school and found her as a cougar, testing her claws on the cheap motel carpet. At the end of school they found Sammy in the middle of a circle of other kids, their daemons all bristling as they taunted him and Iope pacing restlessly in front of Sam as a wildcat, knowing they’d get into trouble if she attacked. 

Tsalia had had no such reservations and thrown herself at them, bowling the other daemons over left and right and catching them with claws and paws, teeth bared, while Dean stormed over to the kids and pretty much did the same. They’d gotten a detention and a warning from the principal about fighting younger kids, but it was fucking worth it to watch Iope whaling on some kid’s crocodile-daemon as an eagle, stabbing at its eyes, and feel Sam’s arms wrapped tight round him as a thank you. 

The kids left Sam alone after that, and two months later when they moved again, Tsalia stayed as she was. Dean watched Jessie Tyler’s daemon change from beagle to budgie to hummingbird to try and catch Tsalia’s attention in class, and realised that he couldn’t remember the last time Tsalia had changed.

"I’m good like this," she whispered back, when he asked her under cover of Sam watching cartoons that evening, licking a paw and scrubbing it over her ear. "We’re good, like this. People won’t fuck with us, and we can take care of Sammy. Chicks’ll think you’re all mature and shit cause I settled early, and everyone knows people with cat daemons are all mysterious and seductive." She’d flashed him a grin, all sharp teeth. "Try not to let ‘em down _too_ much." 

Dean shoved at her head with one hand, her fur soft under his palm. "Shut up, I’m fuckin’ awesome."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'tueri' is Latin; it means 'protect, watch, uphold'


	2. (Don't You) Breathe For Me (memories of Hell)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sam's daemon Iope is a [golden snub-nose monkey](http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/e9aa90db038d8de34b5084561f9cb3e176106dad9ce9cc699f5e03eeac0bb4ca4g.jpg).

_The demon’s mouth tastes like sulphur, thick and choking on his tongue. When she pulls away, she snaps her fingers and crouches down, and the heavy, shining chain in her hand wraps around Tsalia’s neck. Tsalia bares her teeth, growl rumbling in her throat, but doesn’t move, and the demon laughs and strokes lovingly over her ears and face, crooning nonsense like a girl with a kitten. Her touch makes Dean’s skin crawl._

_He snaps back to consciousness, Sam’s snores a welcome comfort from the other bed, and reaches behind him. Tsalia nuzzles sleepily into his hand as it catches at her jaw, her ear, and he breathes out; a dream, it was only a-_

_The chain is cold and hard under his fingers. He rolls over, grabbing for it, and Tsalia is suddenly awake and shaking, burrowing closer, letting him pull it round so he can get to the tag, tilt it so he can see it, the disc catching the light: 364. 364 days. Not enough time. It changes to 363 as he watches, and then the numbers are ticking down, faster and faster like a clock in a movie, like a bomb timer, and then it’s on 0 and from behind him comes the sound of breaking glass._

_The hellhounds are snarling and Sam is yelling in pain, calling Dean’s name as he twists in the bed, the sheets soaking scarlet, and Iope is scrabbling to reach him but something has her and is shaking her like a ragdoll as she screams. Dean’s trying to get to them but he can’t move, chains around his limbs and his throat and Tsalia is choking beside him, the demon pulling the collar tight and Dean can’t breathe either, can only scrabble at his throat and stare in terror as the demon hauls her up until she’s on her back legs, belly exposed, and then there’s that snarl and her stomach is ripped open, insides spilling out in a rush of blood as she howls his name._

_Sam is staring at him in other bed, eyes wide open and mouth moving but no sound coming out, and Iope is wheezing horribly as she pants, little flanks heaving as she crawls towards Sam, arm pitifully outstretched, but before she gets there Sam goes still and she dissolves, tiny fingers still reaching for him._

_The demon lets Tsalia go and she collapses off the bed and onto the floor, blood soaking into the carpet. Dean throws himself after her but Alastair is laughing at him and all the chains pull tight, cutting off his air and wrenching his arms back so his shoulders flare with agony, but all he can see is Tsalia, lying on the floor and staring up at him helplessly as she slowly fades away like smoke._

_And then he’s alone, stuck on the rack while Alastair gently bends back his broken toes and he tries to scream without a tongue, mouth full of blood and eyes burning without their lids, forced to watch as Alastair delicately slides a knifetip in under his toenail and then_ twists _-_

Dean wakes with his mouth half-open in a silent yell. He turns his head to the side and Tsalia’s eyes shine back at him, one heavy paw soft on the crook of his arm, and she wriggles closer so she can butt her head in under his chin. He presses both hands to her flanks, burying his fingers in her fur and focusing on the rise and fall of her ribs under his palms until they’re breathing in sync.

Eventually he gently shoves her away and she lets him push her, flopping over sideways and keeping her paw on his arm. Dean scrubs his palms over his face, feeling the stubble rasp and swiping away the wetness on his cheeks. He wipes his hands on the sheet and rolls over to face Tsalia, resting his hand on her chest to feel her heartbeat, and resolutely closes his eyes again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"Don't you breathe for me, undeserving of your sympathy"_  
>  \- "Sleep", My Chemical Romance


	3. To Have And To Hold (5.21)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jimmy's daemon Ashkel is a [spaniel](http://www.mediafire.com/view/?28aors4xw0hjyfc).

Dean knows it’s wrong, but over the past two years he’s started thinking of Cas’s vessel as _him_ , and the neat little black and white spaniel-daemon who follows quietly in his wake as his, despite the nagging feeling that if Cas had a daemon, it’d be an eagle or something cause, y’know, wings (he feels vindicated in this because for the brief time Jimmy’s daughter had served as Cas’s vessel, her daemon had been a golden eagle, crouched silent and furious on her shoulder with his wings spread wide). He feels kind of guilty about it when he remembers that he’s wrong, that Jimmy Novak seemed like a decent kind of guy, and gets a fresh pang of guilt every time Cas does something reckless with Jimmy’s body and the spaniel-daemon flinches like she’s been hit, wanting desperately to press in close and check he isn’t hurt but unable to bring herself to get too near to the thing occupying her human’s body.

The only thing they know about her is that Jimmy called her "Kel" in that brief period when Cas had left the building, though Dean’s willing to bet that’s probably a nickname. He remembers finding the still body among the ruins, and knowing something was wrong not just because of the anti-angel sigils on the walls but because he’d never seen the spaniel-daemon so animated; lying possessively across Cas’s chest and baring her teeth at them as they approached, fussing over Jimmy when he woke, snuffling at every inch of him within her reach and leaning blissfully against his leg when he sat with them in the motel room, his hand curled around the back of her neck. When Jimmy had begged Cas to leave his daughter and take him instead she’d been whispering denials right to the end, muzzle tucked under his chin and shaking with the pain, preferring to die with him than have to continue watching something else walking around in his skin and forcing her to follow.

She usually sticks close though, determined to keep an eye on Cas and the human body in his care, which is why it’s so weird to see her slink as far away from him as she can once they get back to Bobby’s after the whole Pestilence fiasco, shoulders hunched like she’s pulling some huge weight behind her. Dean understands when Cas starts, hand pressing against his chest, eyes going wide, and she slumps down with a sharp whine, curling up like she wants to disappear.

"Cas?"

Cas doesn’t answer, still staring at the spaniel, face pale. Dean can sympathise - Cas is still new to this whole feeling-pain thing, and then Jimmy’s daemon has to go and _pull_ at him, making him feel like his heart’s being torn slowly out of his chest as she tugs at the bond between them. Tsalia butts her head up against his hand, warning him to let her deal with it, then goes carefully over to the spaniel-daemon and sinks down onto her belly, not quite close enough to touch.

"We can’t help unless you tell us what’s wrong," she says quietly. The spaniel doesn’t answer, and she licks her lips. "Come on Kel-"

“Please don’t call me that,” the spaniel says flatly, opening her eyes. “And you can’t help, it’s not- you can’t fix it.”

“Ashkel,” Cas says after a moment, pained, and she whimpers, curling herself tighter, “I apologise for whatever I’ve done. Are you certain there is nothing I can do-?”

“You’re not powerful enough to get to the bottom of the Atlantic any more, so no.” Cas frowns, and after a second she supplies: “Jimmy’s wedding ring. You haven’t even noticed. I saw as soon as we were rescued, but the fishermen couldn’t do much about it either, so I didn’t mention it.”

Dean, Cas and Tsalia all look down at Cas’s left hand, which is indeed bare. Dean’s first instinct is to tell her they’ll be able to get another one, or give them the money, but he knows that’s not the point - it’s a symbol of Jimmy and his wife’s commitment to each other, a seal on the promise they made before God to love each other for the rest of their lives, and replacing it just won’t cut it.

Tsalia nudges her head closer. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” Ashkel says, so soft Dean only hears it through Tsalia, and there’s really nothing to say to that.


	4. Off The Face Of The Earth (souless!Sam)

“Dean,” Tsalia is murmuring into his ear, voice a half-purr this low and whiskers tickling his skin, “Dean.”

Dean keeps himself still as he wakes, coherent enough to realise she’s whispering for a reason and not wanting to draw attention to himself. He turns his head carefully towards hers. “Yeah?”

“Sam’s gone again,” she says simply, flicking her head over to the other bed, and Dean, relieved that’s all it is, pushes himself up and finds Iope huddled on the window ledge, curled in on herself in an unhappy little ball.

“Freakin’ soulless bastard,” Dean mutters, then louder: “Iope, sweetheart, c’mere.”

Iope turns to look at them, fur all fluffed up in misery, and jumps down onto the floor, moving skittishly like she isn’t sure she’s allowed and leaping up right at the end of the bed. Tsalia crawls down on her stomach and wraps herself around her, and Iope curls into her, little fingers burrowing into her fur.

“There you go,” Dean says softly, and Tsalia nuzzles Iope’s flank, purring a little. Dean resists the temptation to go down there himself and stroke her, give her the human contact she craves, because there’s comforting your brother’s daemon when he’s a soulless _ass_ , and then there’s being seriously inappropriate. 

This isn’t the first time either - ever since Sam came back from Hell, he and Iope hadn’t been quite...right, and pretty much as soon as Dean had agreed to start hunting with them again they’d given up the pretense and stopped even trying to pretend they wanted to be anywhere near each other. All Cas had been able to tell them was that some part of Sam - his soul, or the other half of whatever mystical energy had manifested itself as Iope, or whatever - was no longer there, and as such Sam didn’t give two craps about anyone or anything; not Samuel, not Dean, and not even his own daemon. She, in turn, said he just wasn’t _right_ , and that being near him made her feel wrong too, and from then on, even when they’re out in public, Sam’s been acting like she doesn’t exist.

Dean knows Iope blames herself for not trying hard enough, for getting angry at him, for not fighting harder to get back to Sam when he had kicked her away towards Dean and thrown himself and Lucifer into the Cage, which is bull-fucking-shit - Sam is the one with the problem, not her. Dean hates even the memory of that day; kneeling on the ground with his ears ringing and bruises throbbing and the smell of warm grass while Iope screamed and sobbed and choked in front of him, yelling Sam’s name until her throat was raw, tearing at the ground in a frenzy like she could dig right down to Hell and be with him again. Cas, when he showed up, had crouched down looking surprisingly wretched and told her that she wouldn’t find Sam that way, hands hovering like he wasn’t sure if he should touch her or not, and she’d flung herself at him and got in several nasty scratches to his face and neck and a real shiner of a black eye before he’d lifted her away again.

Dean had twitched despite himself - sure, Cas was an angel, but all the freakin’ same that was a part of Sam’s _soul_ he was manhandling there - and Tsalia had flinched, ears flattening, but Cas had been business-like and set Iope down again in front of them, where she’d just slumped to the grass, all the fight gone out of her. 

“Take care of her,” Cas had said, low, and Tsalia had edged forward and licked tentatively at Iope’s shoulder.

“The fuck do you _think_ I’m gonna do with her?” Dean had snapped at him, but he could hear the hollowness behind his words, the huge echoing empty space of his grief that he wasn’t thinking about now, _couldn’t_ think about now with Iope falling apart in front of him. “But _fuck_ Cas, can’t you-?”

Cas had put a hand on his arm, eyes compassionate. “No Dean, you know I can’t, and Sam didn’t want either of us to try.”

“Fuck what Sam wanted, you self-righteous _dick_ , there's gotta be a way, fuckin' look at her...”

“ _No_ , Dean,” Cas had said, firm and unmoved, and had straightened up and gone to see to Bobby. 

A few days later, Dean had turned up on Lisa’s doorstep with an extra daemon and a blank expression, and she had stared at him for a moment, her parrot-daemon ruffling his feathers uneasily on her shoulder, then stood aside to let him in. Iope had stayed mostly in Dean’s room, hidden from Ben, and went into a kind of catatonic stupor, calling out for Sam whenever she managed a fitful sleep and otherwise staying in a silent huddle of gold and grey fur.

And then a few months in she just upped and vanished, scaring Dean sick that demons had got her despite the lack of evidence, until he met up with Sam again all those months later and found her crouched on his shoulder, tail flicking from side to side and acting like she’d never done anything different.

Except, of course, that everything was different. And now there’s this.

Dean settles back down under the sheets, wriggling his toes against Tsalia’s leg just because he can and trying to imagine what it would be like if Tsalia was ignoring him, hated even being around him, and fucked off every night to god-knows-where just because she felt like rubbing it in. Tsalia twists so her head is resting his foot, growl rumbling through her jaw in a way that says she doesn’t like what he’s thinking about, and Dean presses his foot up into her warmth and obediently wipes his mind blank.


	5. Already The Voice Inside My Head (7.01)

“There’s a word for this, you know,” Dean says to Tsalia, head still under the Impala’s hood as he checks everything over, and feels the car move ever so slightly as she shifts in the driver’s seat, fur rustling against the leather.

“For what?” she asks shortly, growl rumbling under her words, daring him, and he knows she’s watching him, tail twitching.

“For you,” Dean says, finally withdrawing and meeting her eyes unflinchingly. “For all this _moping_ you’ve been doing, mooning over the radio like it’s gonna start playing that Beiber kid or something. You’ve gotta get over this, Tsalia. He’s not coming back.”

“Like you’ve got over it, you mean,” Tsalia says on a hiss, uncurling and dropping down onto the ground with a soft, heavy crunch of gravel. She’s on him before Dean can do more than brace for it, reared up on her hind legs so she can get right into his face, paw on his shoulder and claws pricking unerringly through the layers to hit the still-sensitive skin of the handprint Cas burned into his shoulder what almost feels like a lifetime ago. Dean shoves her off and, point made, she drops back down, glaring up at him. 

“You - we - can’t keep thinking of him like he’s still _Cas_!” he snaps at her, hand spread protectively over his shoulder. “He’s not, you heard him! He’s _dangerous_ and insane and he needs to be put down, Tsalia! You’ve gotta stop pining over all the good stuff he does, cause he’s fucking shit up too! He’s _not_ any better as a hands-on god than the other one was at abandoning everything to go to shit!”

“He’s trying to make the world better,” Tsalia bites out, ears flattened and teeth flashing with every word.

“Yeah, cause smiting motivational speakers really helps with that!”

“So that’s it, you’re just gonna kill him?” she presses, and Dean stares back at her, schools his expression blank.

“Yeah, seems so.”

“After everything he did for you, you’re just gonna-”

“Oh, so that’s what this is about?” Dean says nastily, sick to death of the whole subject and hearing the unwelcome echo of his own voice: _Cas too?_ “This is cause you _like_ him, cause while I was busy suffocating on dirt in my own coffin he was _touching_ you.”

Tsalia bares her teeth and lunges up at him again, uncoiling like a spring the way she has a million other times to rip out throats. This time her paws are on his chest, heavy and immovable, and her face is inches from his, eyes blazing gold in the sunlight and the scar on her face standing out from this close, another reminder of Hell and, inextricably, Cas. “I was the one one that _dug you out_ , Dean.” Something, some tone, some inflection on his name, sounds eerily like Cas when he was pissed, and Dean wonders when the hell his daemon started sounding more like his angel than him. “Castiel raised you from Perdition and then he remade me from the atoms of myself, and because of him _we both lived_. Don’t you fucking _dare_ try and make that about him touching me, cause that just makes two of us.” One paw thwacks against the scar again and Dean twists away from her.

“Jesus Tsalia, stop that!”

“You need to remember that he’s more than a hopped-up junkie!” she shoots back, tail lashing. “He _saved_ us, he’s our _friend_ and more than that, and you’re ignoring it all because it’s easier to hate him!”

“He made a deal-” Dean begins furiously, and she sweeps a paw forward, sending pebbles and grit showering against his legs.

“Shut up, I _know_ , okay, you think I don’t remember? And I think it was shitty fucking thing to do! But you can’t just throw away-”

“HE BROKE SAM’S WALL!” Dean shouts at her. “What the fuck kind of, of ‘friend’ _does_ that, Tsalia?”

She hunches down on herself, unable to argue with that. “He wasn't himself,” she mutters, but it's hollow.

“Look, I know this is hard,” Dean says quietly, raking a hand through his hair. "Fuck, Tsalia, I’ll never forgive him for that but I kind of hate that he didn’t choose something else, any other way to get us out the game, cause then, fuck, I probably would.” He sinks down onto his haunches and Tsalia comes slinking over, both of them unwilling to say how much they need the comfort. “I just- I fucking wish I could just punch him in the face, for real, and leave him. But he’s a threat, Tsalia, just like Raphael and Lucifer and Lilith, and we’ve gotta stop him.” Tsalia nuzzles wordlessly into his chest, uncomplaining even when his hands fist tight in her fur. “I don’t want to kill him,” Dean tells her, low, head bent over her like anyone else could overhear, “but we have to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"Don't waste your time on me, you're already the voice inside my head (I miss you)"_  
>  \- "Miss You", blink 182


	6. Out Of The Darkness (4.01)

The angel Castiel shatters the final barriers of the Pit and emerges into the sunlight, the shockwave felling trees and terrifying birds into flight. The raw, torn soul the angel carries stirs, sensing the presence of its earthly vessel nearby; the flesh is badly decomposed and rotten, disintegrating further even as Castiel observes it, and though pulling this soul from Perdition is a victory, the mission is not complete until Dean Winchester is returned not just to Earth, but to life.

Even angels are not immune to the horrors of the Pit though, and Castiel takes a moment to simply rest, and to try and soothe the soul now actively struggling against the grace that has shielded and protected it since it was ripped from the depths of Hell and borne upward back towards the light. Dean has been in Perdition longer than he was on Earth, has known nothing but violence and pain for so long that Castiel can only be another kind of torture, an illusion of salvation that he can’t, mustn’t believe. No matter how Castiel reaches out to it with tendrils of grace, offering the reassurance of holy mission, the knowledge of the divine plan, and finally just simple comfort, Dean’s soul curls stubbornly in on itself, refusing to believe.

Finally Castiel is forced to accept that Dean will never respond, and ceases trying. Now that it’s so close to completion the importance of the mission is humming through the angel’s grace, and Castiel’s attention turns to the body in its simple wooden coffin six feet below the ground. The first things to reconstruct are the internal organs, each restored to perfect working condition and linked back together into the systems that allow and sustain life. The cells and molecules that have eroded away in the mortal months Dean’s body has been empty of life are still present in the surrounding earth and it is merely a matter of reintegrating them, for which Castiel, already weary, is grateful. 

Dean’s soul is left to its own thoughts as most of Castiel’s focus turns to reviving his mortal body. Though the angel is invisible, the air at the edge of the clearing nearest to the rough-cut cross begins to shimmer.

When Dean was alive, especially in his last year, he lived somewhat recklessly, and it takes longer than Castiel had anticipated to not only restore his organs but to improve and revitalise them. Muscles, ligaments and tendons come next, wrapping around bared bones, binding the body together, and skin follows. Marrow fills the hollow bones, gums plump up around teeth, and both eyelids swell outward as the eyeballs below are restored.

There’s definite shape to the air now, lithe and feline and getting clearer every second, coalescing like smoke. Dean’s soul is shocked into stillness, thrumming with remembered grief and still unwilling to believe, and if Castiel could spare the grace it would go towards once more trying to convince him that this is truly real.

Blood is the most difficult part, as much of Dean’s has soaked into the floor of the house in Indiana. Castiel is tired now, grace waning fast, but the mission must be completed. Dean’s heart stutters to life, electricity shooting along the rebuilt nerves, and with every beat more blood surges through the repaired vessels, circulates to the healthy new organs. In the dark of the coffin, Dean’s death-grey skin flushes with colour.

The air is still again. At the edge of the clearing lies a cougar daemon, unmoving. 

Dean’s soul is trembling now, yearning desperately for some kind of resolution, and Castiel can only reach for it, returning it to its body with as much care and reverence as the Righteous Man deserves. The instructions Castiel received were very insistent on certain points, and the angel ensures that the mark of Heaven, Castiel’s claim on Dean’s soul, takes physical form, manifesting as a handprint burnt into Dean’s shoulder. Then the final threads of grace are removed from Dean’s body and his soul takes over; his lungs inflate, gasping in air, and his brain flares into consciousness.

Tsalia is still laid out on the grass, curled like a kitten sleeping at her mother’s side. Castiel brushes grace over her, checking she’s reformed correctly, and at the contact she shivers to life, twisting sideways and away, spitting and snarling, knowing only that it’s not Dean who’s touching her. Underground, Dean feels it too and redoubles his efforts to claw free of his coffin, scared now not only that he’s going to suffocate but that some unknown force is attacking his daemon. Tsalia, aware now on some level that Castiel means her no harm, ignores the angel’s continued presence and throws herself at the grave, paws throwing up great clots of earth and grass as she calls for Dean, tells him she’s coming for him, that they’ll be okay.

Dean’s hand breaks free of the ground and Tsalia nuzzles into it, licking his fingers and pressing her face to them so Dean can feel her fur, her warmth, the reality of her presence. The other hand joins it, scrabbling at the soil as Tsalia redoubles her efforts, and then Dean’s head breaks into the air like a drowning man resurfacing, and he gulps in oxygen while Tsalia licks the earth and tears from his face and purrs, his name rumbling in her chest. 

Dean manages to wrestle his shoulders free too, then wraps his arms around Tsalia’s neck and lets her pull him the rest of the way out, tugging her down and burying his face in her chest, murmuring “Tsalia” and “thought I’d never-” and “don’t you ever fuckin’ leave me again” into her fur while she wraps her limbs around him and revels in the life in him. Eventually they sit up and Dean cradles her head in his hands and looks her over, running gentle hands over the scar crossing her eye, the notches in her ears, the other scars hidden under her coat.

“Tsalia,” he whispers, butting his head against hers, “please, tell me you weren’t-”

“I wasn’t, I wasn’t Dean, I promise,” and she brings a paw up over his wrist, “these aren’t mine - I mean, I don’t remember getting them, I think they’re just cause of you, what you...what happened to you.”

“Okay,” Dean says, shaky, “okay, good, thank god.”

His intention is not truly to express gratitude for his redemption, but Castiel takes it as such anyway and reaches out to the rest of the Host, exhausted but satisfied with a job well done. The Host receive the news with joy, pass it among their ranks, and soon every angel there ever was or is knows and rejoices.

_“Dean Winchester is saved.”_


	7. Like We're Going To War (5.04)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cas's daemon Vim is an [African wild dog](http://www.mediafire.com/view/?k1vb63mz7w9iy3r).

It would be an understatement to say that Dean isn’t expecting the Cas that he finds past the bead curtain, sitting cross-legged on the floor and apparently conducting some kind of tantric yoga session. He tips Dean a wink when he sees him, tells the women grouped around him to go get ready for the orgy and grins wide and dopey as they leave, and behind him a scruffy tan, black and white dog-daemon stretches herself playfully out on the floor.

“You, uh- you gonna introduce us?” Dean asks once they’re alone, gesturing awkwardly at the new daemon, and Cas stops doing impossibly bendy things with his limbs and blinks at him.

“Oh wow,” he says, eying Dean up and down like he’s a puzzle piece that won’t fit. “Sorry, I thought-”

“Dumbass. Of course it’s not him,” the dog-daemon says scornfully, rolling abruptly up to her feet. “For one, _he’s_ actually bothered to come visit.” She comes trotting over, claws clicking on the rough wood floor, and butts her head into Tsalia’s chest. “Hi, just call me Vim.” Tsalia draws back, ears flattening disapprovingly, but Vim just laughs and drops down onto her back, batting at Tsalia’s chin with her paws. Tsalia bares her teeth and backs away, and Vim flops over onto her side and watches her, tongue hanging out and tail smacking the floor.

Cas snorts, looking amused, and Dean stares at him. This dude is definitely nothing like the Cas he knows. “Uh, so how come you-?”

Cas stares at him for a moment, then shrugs. “All the other angels went running back home and barred the door, and all my ‘mojo’ just...drained away. I woke up one morning with her nose in my face. Apparently she’s an African wild dog.”

Dean thinks he should say sorry or something at this final proof of Cas’s fall, of his humanity, but it seems inadequate. Also, it’s not _his_ fault, okay, it’s this future Dean’s. _His_ Cas is still part-angel. “So...you can’t just whammy me back to the future then?”

Cas’s laugh is throaty and bitter. “No, Dean, I really can’t.”

*

Dean leaves his future self in the cabin to brood over the Colt, and wanders kind of aimlessly around the camp. Sam is being possessed by Lucifer. The other him’s planning to take him out, and urging Dean to say yes to Michael. Cas is some hippy stoner who has orgies. What the fuck is Zachariah trying to prove? As the other him said, saying yes to Michael is not an option, not even with this stark reality staring him in the face. Cause fuck knows this is bad, but there’s absolutely no guarantee that Michael wouldn’t have made it even worse.

Tsalia goes still, ears pricked, and Dean follows her when she steals over to the side of one of the cabins. There’s a giggle from round the corner, and Dean chances a look, Tsalia hunkered down on her stomach and doing the same.

Cas is ambling towards the other Dean’s cabin, light catching on the bottle in his hand. Vim is gamboling around him, chasing shadows and snapping at thin air. Cas doesn’t bother knocking, just opens the door and slips inside, and Vim pauses just long enough to drop her jaw in a grin as she stares right at Dean and Tsalia, then follows him in. Are they having some kind of secret meeting? Cause if they are, Dean’s pretty fucking sure he gets a free pass to eavesdrop, cause they’ll only be talking about Sam, or maybe some vision Chuck’s had that changes their strategy for tomorrow. Tsalia crosses the distance to the cabin first, low to the ground and vanishing into the shadows under the window, and Dean follows the hollow ache under his ribs as she gets just too far away and joins her.

The other Dean is sitting at the table, the Colt in front of him, and Cas is leaning right over his shoulder, far too close, with the bottle on the table a foot or so from Dean’s hand. He’s saying something, low and persuasive, and Dean smiles with no humour and replies, turning away from him. Cas grins, wide and way too amused for the situation, and takes a pull from the bottle, setting it down deliberately on the table right by Dean’s elbow. Dean closes his eyes and pinches his nose, clearly irritated, and Cas watches him too keenly for someone who’s supposed to be well on the way to drunk.

“Look at their daemons,” Tsalia says from where she’s crouched at his feet, and Dean obligingly drops his eyes. Under the table, Vim is on her stomach and inching closer to the other Tsalia, who’s flicking her tail like she does when she’s preoccupied, eyes slitted half-shut and pretending not to notice Vim’s approach. 

Then there’s the sound of the chair shooting backwards, and the other Dean snapping at Cas, muffled just enough to be unintelligible from the outside. He throws his arms out, paces away and then back, and Cas just watches him, arms loosely folded. Dean stops in front of him and shouts some more - loud enough for the Dean watching to get snatches of it, “but it’s not _about_ you” and “you don’t even fucking care anyway” and “this is all just a bad trip to you, right?” - and Cas answers, quiet and reasonable but with a smirk lurking on his mouth, and under the table their daemons are tensed, not looking at each other but coiled like springs.

It’s Dean that snaps, in the end; in one sudden movement he’s got Cas by the throat and and is shoving him backwards until they both hit the wall, Cas’s head tilted up and back by the hand curled around his neck. It’s not a gentle impact, Cas’s whole body slamming into the wall with Dean’s weight behind it, and under the table Tsalia lunges for Vim and locks her jaws around her throat, one heavy paw on her chest, eyes on the humans. Cas doesn’t seem to be affected at all, still smiling mockingly, goading Dean into _something_ \- 

-and a second later Dean’s mouth is on his, sharp and furious but clearly a kiss, and Cas’s eyes flutter shut.

The Dean outside can only stare, stunned, mental wheels spinning uselessly. What-? When-? _How_ -?

Cas’s hands move, grabbing at Dean’s hair, fingers curling into it, running down the back of his neck and along his jaw and over his shoulders like he can’t bear to keep them still, and from the other side of the window Dean watches his counterpart’s grip soften, the kiss gentle and break. Cas opens his mouth, eyes glittering, but Dean’s hand tightens again, just long enough to shake him silent. Cas shrugs, a loose movement of his shoulders, and then he sort of... _rolls_ , body arching and falling like a wave against Dean’s, and Dean’s hand pushes up from his throat to his jaw, canting his head up for another kiss, then it slides down again and urges him onto his knees.

Dean starts back from the window in shock, pulse thundering in his ears. Aside from the fact that he does _not_ need to watch either himself _or_ Cas have sex, _ever_ , let _alone_ with each other, he has never manhandled anyone he was having sex with like that in his entire _life_. Sure, he likes a little rough and tumble, but he would never do _that_ , never just casually slam someone into a wall, choke them, force them down onto their knees to suck him off - and worse, he doesn’t know why Cas is _letting_ him. Okay, so the dude’s not an angel any more; that doesn’t mean he has to let Dean do whatever the fuck he wants with him, jesus. The dude is clearly fucked up in this timeline, but this? This is a whole ‘nother level.

“Dean,” Tsalia says, butting her head against his hip. “Dean, no, look at me and Vim, it’s not like that.”

“I’m - the other me - is having _sex_ in there! _With Cas!_ ” Dean hisses back, hunkering down to her level. “No way am I looking in there!”

Tsalia makes a disapproving clucking noise Dean’s sure real cougars can’t make. “The daemons are much closer than you and Cas, you won’t even see anything. Anyway, it’s just your dick, you see it all the time.”

“Not attached to someone else! And not-”

“With Cas attached to it, yeah yeah.”

“Oh god, shut up.” Dean buries his face in her shoulder and grabs for the scruff of her neck, shaking her a little - until he realises that’s just what the other him had done to Cas and shoves himself away. Tsalia watches him with what he’s pretty sure is exasperated amusement, eyes glinting gold in the dark.

“Just look.”

Dean scrubs a hand over his face, then steels himself, sets his gaze as low as he can, and looks.

The daemons are still under the table, and for a second Dean thinks nothing has changed; then he realises that Tsalia’s crouch is relaxed, not tense, and though neither her head nor her paw have moved, her face is nuzzled right into Vim’s throat and her foreleg is thrown across her not as a restraint but almost like she needs the reassurance of touch. Vim, for her part, seems as unconcerned as Cas had been; her tail is wagging, slow and steady, and her head is turned towards the humans, ears pricked. Almost without meaning to, Dean follows her gaze.

And yeah, okay, that would be Cas, sucking his cock. 

Jesus fuck, _fuck_ , seriously, what the fuck, he shouldn’t be seeing this, it’s their moment not his and that’s not even _him_ , not even _his_ Cas - and yet it _is_ and it _could_ be. And fuck if Tsalia wasn’t right, too: other him’s got one arm braced on the wall, head hanging down, but his other hand is stroking rough through Cas’s hair, slip-sliding down his cheek, following his jawline with the backs of his fingers, thumbing just under his eye. And Cas’s head tilts to follow it, his eyes flickering closed like he’s savouring the touch before he slits them back open and looks up, does something that makes the other Dean shiver and snap his hips forward.

No seriously, why is he still watching this?

Next to him, Tsalia makes a throaty, approving noise, a cross between a growl and a purr, and yep, that’ll do it. She’s lying against the wall of the cabin, eyes half-lidded, as inscrutable as the her counterpart earlier, and Dean scrubs a hand through his hair, staring down at her. After a moment she lifts her eyes to his, one ear flicking in lieu of raising an eyebrow. He scowls, mouths _We shouldn’t be here._

She shrugs, liquid and and unconcerned. “But we are.”

Dean swipes a hand across his mouth, stares resolutely at a knothole in one of the planks making up the cabin wall. He can’t hear anything, knows he can’t, but all the same his mind fills in the blanks for him; the other Dean’s deep, controlled breathing, rhythm never changing but slowly getting more and more ragged; the soft whisper of air as Cas breathes through his nose, and the _noises_ he’ll be making, not even the deliberate ones, just the slick sound of wet skin as he sucks, lets the other Dean fuck his mouth as he gets close-

Tsalia makes that rough purring sound again, and Dean darts his gaze down to her, is grateful when she doesn’t meet his eyes this time. He licks his lips and she echoes it a second later, slow and deliberate, and fuck it, if he’s gonna get the soundtrack he might as well have the visuals to go with it.

The other him has Cas by the hair, all gentleness gone and knuckles white as he fucks his mouth, head tipped against his supporting arm. He’s got Cas up at an angle that must be uncomfortable, but Cas doesn’t seem to care, is watching him with the same sly satisfaction he displayed when he goaded Dean into kissing him. His hands are still restless, but they stick to Dean’s lower back and thighs now, smooth strokes at odds with the increasingly fast, hard thrusts of Dean’s hips.

Their daemons are curled together now, Tsalia’s tail lashing and Vim’s teeth locked in her ruff, Tsalia shifting restlessly and pressing closer, closer, nuzzling into Vim’s chest as she shakes, shakes-

-and Dean’s fingers spasm against the wall, whitening as he digs his nails into the wood and Cas’s head slams into the wall below, Dean’s other hand cushioning it as he rides out his orgasm and Cas runs flat hands up and down his thighs, seemingly oblivious to the awkward angle of his neck and legs.

With the final aftershocks Dean sways into his supporting arm, head dropping lower, and Cas’s hands come up to brace his hips as he hollows his cheeks and gently draws away. Dean’s shoulders twitch at what must be too much sensation, and when Cas finally sags back against the wall himself the hand that Dean’s been keeping behind his head slips down over the nape of his neck and comes to rest bracketing one side of his throat, thumb resting right in the hollow of it. One side of Cas’s mouth curls up in a smirk and he rolls his eyes up to meet Dean’s, rolls his tongue out over his lower lip and leaves it wet. He shifts just a little, spreading his knees, and presses the heel of one hand to his dick, eyes fluttering. Dean’s thumb slides up higher over his throat, then his whole hand slots round across Cas’s neck and Cas arches his hips up, lets his mouth fall open. 

Tsalia nips at Vim’s throat and Vim just cants her head back, boneless and trusting. Tsalia shifts, rolls her over and pins her with a paw on her chest, and Vim twists her head to the side, white throat exposed. Tsalia swoops down and closes her jaws around it. Vim quivers like a live wire under her, and Dean twists to stare at them, then looks back to Cas, mouth set.

Cas laughs at him, says something and rubs his hand over the front of his jeans, watching Dean with half-lidded eyes, and Dean steps back, hands falling back to his sides. Cas’s eyes narrow, but Dean just refastens his jeans and then steps back in, and Cas grins up at him, flushed and breathing hard, hips snapping forward.

Dean considers him for a moment, then folds his arms, looming over him, and Cas lets his head fall back against the wall so he can stare up at him and shudders, stroking himself long and lasciviously. Dean says something, low and rumbling, and Cas huffs a laugh and pops open his fly. It’s not in the least surprising that he’s going commando. He wraps a hand around his dick and shivers, hips arching, and when Dean says something else he licks his lips and settles back against the wall, eyes falling shut as he jacks himself off.

Dean watches him, arms folded and feet apart, and Cas slits his eyes open and says something that ends on a gasp; Dean’s next words are staccato and sharp, and Cas smacks both hands to his thighs and slumps into the wall, body drawn taut, dick still sticking up against his stomach, flushed and wet at the tip. 

The rapid rise and fall of his chest slows gradually, and Dean raps out another order, nudging a foot against Cas’s inner thigh and making his cock twitch. Cas takes a deep breath and then shakes his head, licks over his lower lip and adds something else. Dean refuses and gestures at Cas with a shrug of his shoulders that seems to say that if Cas won’t play neither will he, but Cas’s answer is a single word, a name the Dean outside doesn’t need to hear to know. The other Dean goes still, clearly weighing his options, and a few feet away Vim has shaken Tsalia off enough to get her teeth against Tsalia’s lower jaw. 

And in the end it’s Tsalia who capitulates, rolling over and exposing her throat in one smooth move that Dean echoes in dropping to his knees.

Cas all but throws himself into Dean’s lap, and Dean lets him, just as he lets Cas lean their foreheads together as he reaches down to finish getting him off, other hand sliding down under the waistband of Cas’s jeans. Cas’s mouth falls open, whole body electrified, and when Dean’s wrist flexes he bows forward, hands skidding down off Dean’s shoulders where they’ve been stroking through his hair, and comes, fingers catching at the back of Dean’s shirt.

They stay like that, after Cas has stopped rocking back into Dean’s fingers. As far as the Dean watching can tell they’re not talking, just sitting there, holding each other up. And Dean has to admit it surprises him, because from what he’s seen this Dean and this Cas have no particular fondness for each other; shared history, yes, and trust of a kind, despite all Dean’s jabs about Cas’s drug use, but this?

And then their daemons untangle themselves and get to their feet, Vim shaking like she’s just been swimming and Tsalia pausing to stretch, and the moment is gone. Vim says something, nudging at Cas’s arm, and Cas refastens his jeans and rolls back up onto his feet, apparently unconcerned by the wet stain on his shirt. Dean strips out of his own shirt and pulls on a new one, already acting like nothing has happened, and when he goes back to the table and its maps Tsalia settles, sphinx-like, at his side. Cas reclaims his bottle and swigs the remainder of the contents in one long swallow, then sketches Dean a mocking salute and heads for the door.

The Dean outside edges back around the corner of the building, Tsalia flat on her belly, and listens for the soft clatter of the closing door, Cas’s tuneless whistling as he and Vim wander back to their own cabin, and finally the silence that means he and his daemon can sneak away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"You and I go hard at each other like we're going to war"_  
>  \- "One More Night", Maroon 5
> 
> Also, for anyone wondering, Vim's full name is Telocvovim, Enochian for 'of him that has fallen'. In the absence of anyone else to do it, Cas named her himself.


	8. Birds Of A Feather (7.17)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cas's daemon is a [black-shouldered kite](http://www.mediafire.com/view/?tbemw0j3bng64x3).

Jimmy’s spaniel daemon had become as much a part of Cas as the blue eyes, the crazy hair and the stupid rough voice, and wondering what happened to her once Cas pumped himself full of monster souls had occupied a lot of Dean’s quieter moments, early on. Tsalia had made a pretty good case for them getting into Heaven, but Dean knows she doesn’t believe it, not when you know what normal monsters do to normal humans and especially not when you add the leviathans into the equation - even Cas himself hadn’t survived contact with them.

So it’s weird as fuck to see this “Emmanuel” guy with a cute little black and white bird-daemon perched on his shoulder like he’s always been there (and yeah, Dean’s kind of surprised that Cas’s daemon is male, but then the dude isn’t exactly human is he, and with magical healing powers come same-sex daemons, so whatever). Turns out that, like Cas, the bird is a badass - some kind of hawk or something - and when Cas gets all smitey with the demons the bird claws at their faces, shrieking in a way that kind of makes Dean think his ears are gonna start bleeding again.

The worst part though, the very worst, is when Cas is hunched up against the wall, all wide terrified eyes, and this new daemon is fluttering along the floor at his feet begging them for help, lost and vulnerable and scared and reaching out to the only people Cas knows.

“Dean, please,” he appeals, darting in close to Dean’s feet, and Dean can only shake his head while Tsalia lashes her tail and does her best to ignore the bird-daemon as he wobbles about between her paws, never quite touching. Iope makes a distressed noise, stoking repetitively at Sam’s hair, and Sam hushes her with one hand buried in her fur, watching Cas cower from his old nightmares and helpless to stop it.

The daemon’s still circling the room on unsteady wings when they leave Cas to Meg’s tender care, and Tsalia is the last out the door, tail twitching and head low. “I don’t like it,” she says shortly when they get outside, and Sam huffs a sigh.

“Yeah, neither do I, but what else can we do?” Iope makes an discontented noise in her throat from where she’s perched on his shoulder, and Tsalia echoes it as a growl.

“Look, we can’t take him with us,” Dean says ruthlessly as he opens the car. “In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re kinda busy right now being on the run from the chompers, and we don’t even have the panic room or anything to lock him in. Every demon in Hell’d be on our asses the moment we took him outta there.”

“Every demon in Hell’ll be in _there_ , with Meg throwing the welcome party,” Iope points out, settling herself in Sam’s lap. 

“Nah, Crowley’s neither of their biggest fan,” Dean answers, starting the engine. “She reveals him, Crowley comes and pops her too.”

“Bet some of the angels want him too,” Tsalia says from the backseat.

“Yeah, cause they’d just let Meg hand him over and walk free,” Dean fires back. “He’ll be _fine _okay? Dude’s whacked; mental hospital’s the best place for him.”__

“Until he starts busting the lights and, I don’t know, throwing the staff around thinking they’re demons,” Sam says, and Dean throws up a hand.

“Okay fine, what do you suggest we do, huh? Take the crazy angel with us on the road, wait for him to get pissed at us and scramble your brains again? Wait for him to get copied by the leviathans so they get angel powers on top of everything else? Or maybe if we’re lucky he’ll just go on another homicidal rampage through an office block, or kill us in our sleep.”

“Yeah okay, so he made some mistakes,” Sam counters heatedly, “but he doesn’t deserve to be handed over to Crowley on a platter, Dean. We’ve both been to Hell, think...think how much worse it would be for him, for betraying the _king_. He doesn’t even know where he is right now, or probably even _who_ he is.”

“Yeah, well he’s got a nice shiny new daemon for that,” Dean snaps. “And Meg’ll keep him outta trouble, okay, she can’t do anything else. Mutually assured destruction.”

“Well I still think it’s a shitty plan,” Sam says mulishly, folding his arms. “He’s done a lot for us Dean, you said it yourself.”

“Yeah, including fucking you up but good, so excuse me if I don’t feel like hugs and rainbows just cause he made himself as crazy as he made you.”

“He chose to do it,” Iope says flatly. “It’s his penance. I think we can say he’s absolved.”

Dean shrugs, quick and angry. “If you want. You’re the ones he sent tripping into la-la-Lucifer land.”

They drive on in silence. Curled up in the back, Tsalia murmurs, almost to herself, “We don’t even know his name.”


	9. And Everything Between (Purgatory)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Benny's daemon Aesther was a [boxer](http://www.mediafire.com/view/?zue1e24ti0m3u8c).

"Cas!" Dean yells. "Cas!" and only the wind and the whooping howls answer him. "You get your feathery ass back here, you bastard, we gotta stick together in this shithole!"

"Dean," Tsalia says, tensed against his leg, "stop shouting. He ain't coming back, and we've got incoming."

"Where?" Dean asks, turning, listening, and gets the rustle of leaves and the eager thudding footfalls of things that don't care if their prey hears them coming.

"Every which fuckin' way," Tsalia answers, ears flattening for a second in displeasure. "Still got the knife?"

"You'd damn well better hope so," Dean quips, and she bares her teeth in something that's almost amusement as he drops to one knee and frees the blade from its holster at his ankle.

"Stay down," Tsalia snaps, and then something huge and furry and bellowing erupts from the trees and she throws herself to meet it, while a second comes hurtling out as soon as she's gone and heads straight for Dean, mad red eyes glinting in the dull light.

He kills it easily enough - it's just a dumb brute, apparently hungry enough to attack blind, and for its trouble it gets a knife through the roof of its mouth - but there's another one behind him and a third has Tsalia on her back, though she's gutting it with every kick of her hind legs, and he can hear more coming. He backs up as far as he can, gets within a few feet of her, then shuts his brain off and fights for their life.

*

The deathstick is Tsalia's idea. Dean is still too winded and stunned to be alive to get up quite yet, and she's fussing over the gashes inflicted by the bat-dragon thing now wheezing for air through a gaping throat on the other side of the clearing.

"Dean, Dean, hey," she says, head butting under his chin until he looks down at her, and she repeats, slow, "where's the knife?"

Dean glances down at his hand, already knowing it isn't there, lost in the slippery gush of blood when the thing caught him on the arm, and shrugs. "Dunno."

Tsalia sighs disapprovingly, sounding achingly like Sam. "Well then, guess we'll have to improvise. Wasn't much use anyway."

Dean chokes out a laugh. "Saved your ass more times'n I can count."

"Yeah, well, this is Purgatory, Dean. We gotta think bigger," she says, almost fond, and nudges at his arm. "Keep pressure on that."

"Yeah, thanks Ma," Dean says sarcastically, but doesn't let his grip slacken. Somewhere under his ribs something aches and burns at Tsalia's distance, but he can bear it, uses it to help keep him awake, and he's rewarded when she comes back with something bloody and curved in her mouth. She drops it at his feet (and Dean can't quite shake the visual of a dog with a bone, though he does just about manage to turn his laugh into a cough) and comes up to crowd against his chest again, twisting to inspect his wounded arm and grunting in satisfaction when they find it's clotted.

"C'mon then Rambo, let's go," she says with a sort of dogged determination, and Dean snorts.

"Go where, Tsalia?"

"Away from that thing," she answers, flicking her head at the motionless hulk of the bat out of hell. "Everything eats everything here, we gotta go before we're on the menu too."

"Be too busy chowing down on that to bother us," Dean insists, because dammit he's comfortable here.

"Yeah, sure, thanks for that, Mr Bloodloss. Now get up."

"What, y'gonna drag me?"

She huffs out a sharp breath through her nose, then sits down on her haunches right in front of him, ducking her head to meet his eyes square on, her's glowing faintly gold in the perpetual twilight. "Dean. Don't be a child. We need to move. We need to find Cas. We need to get out of here, and back to Sam."

"I know," Dean says wearily, tipping his head forward to thump into her chest. "'M just tired."

"Be tired later," she says succinctly, voice rumbling like the Impala's engine under his cheek, and drops her head to nuzzle briefly at his jaw. "Now c'mon. Up."

Dean follows her mindlessly for he doesn't know how long, his whole world narrowed to her lithe dark shape walking patiently a few steps ahead of him, still carrying whatever the fuck that is in her mouth. Eventually they find a stream with a bush growing on the shore, and Dean crawls under it and passes out while Tsalia lies down outside, the stream at his back and his daemon guarding his front.

It's not safety, but it the closest they can get.

When he wakes Tsalia is drowsing, and the moment she registers he's awake her eyes close completely and her whole body goes slack. He takes the few steps to the stream and splashes his face, takes a drink, washes his jacket free of blood and drapes it over Tsalia to dry because she's the warmest thing in miles. Then he finds the blooded hunk of whatever she's been dragging round by one of her paws and, curious, washes it clean, revealing the shining black bone of a monstrous claw, apparently ripped right out of its bed for him.

His first thought is maybe a sickle or a curved knife, but something nags at him and he thinks of how they're carving through these things that aren't technically even alive, like some kind of fucked up angels of death, and he knows.

Not a sickle, a scythe.

*

Benny is...an adjustment, after howeverlong of it being just him and Tsalia (he's been notching the deathstick's handle every time he wakes up with whatever he can find, but neither of them can remember exactly how long they were wondering around in here before he made it). It's kinda nice, having someone else to talk to, share stories with, who doesn't know them all already, but mostly he notices how Benny watches Tsalia, eyes soft.

"What was she?" he asks one evening, when they've made a fire because they can and Benny is poking at the kindling with a branch, eyes frequently sliding sideways to Tsalia, basking on her side in the warmth. "Your daemon?"

"Boxer," Benny answers after a moment, glancing up to meet his eyes. "Aesther. Last I heard, she was howlin' for me as the old man swung."

There's nothing to say to that, so Dean doesn't, only inches his hand a little further out until it brushes Tsalia's shoulder.

"Thought she'd be a lioness, maybe, when I was a kid," Benny adds after a moment, watching Tsalia with the fire glittering in his eyes. He never apologises for it, and Dean never apologises for taking comfort in her, or worrying for her when they fight, or letting her fuss over him afterwards and grumble like Bobby about how he should learn to duck.

"Thought she'd be a wolf," Dean responds, smoothing a hand down her flank. "Or a wolfhound, like my dad's."

"Nah," Benny says easily, leaning back on his arms. "You're not that kinda person, brother. Takes a special kinda human t'end up in monster hell with his daemon intact, lookin' for an angel. And that kinda person don't have a daemon that trots around following the pack and the rules."

"Cas is family," Dean says shortly, throwing another couple of branches onto the fire. "Wolves are all about keeping their family safe."

Benny shrugs. "So're lions," he says evenly.

*

When they find Cas, it's almost an anticlimax. One minute there's nothing, the next the ground is sloping downwards, stream whispering up ahead, and there's a figure crouched at the water's edge, poised for flight but currently at rest, water in his cupped palms and a deceptively cute white bird-daemon bathing in the shallows, feathers all fluffed up.

Dean shouts his name but it's Tsalia that moves, throwing herself forward and barreling straight past Cas and into the water, which splashes up around her as she skids to a halt with the bird-daemon between her paws. He screeches, startled, wings beating at the water, but Tsalia is laughing and dropping her head to nuzzle at him while Dean grabs Cas in a hug, relieved and delighted to have found him alive at last.

Cas doesn't hug him back, holds himself stiff like he's suspicious or unsure of what to do, but the bird-daemon presses back against Tsalia's cheek, crooning, and Dean pulls away to take Cas in, somewhat bedraggled but clear-eyed and whole.

"Nice peach fuzz," he teases, can't help himself, ticking a knuckle off Cas's jaw, and Cas blinks back at him with eyes that are ancient and weary and faintly stunned, like he can't quite believe Dean came looking for him.

Dean introduces him to Benny, explains about their little get-out-of-jail-free card, and Benny sizes Cas up and asks bluntly why he abandoned Dean. Cas visibly steels himself, and the bird-daemon flutters up onto his shoulder, preening himself and avoiding eye contact, while Cas insists that the leviathans are after him and it's best if they just leave him so he can keep them away.

"Let me bottom-line it for you," Dean says firmly, making sure he holds Cas's eyes. "I'm not leaving here without you, understand?"

The bird-daemon clicks his beak, and Cas gives in. "I understand."

"Good," Dean says, clapping a hand to his shoulder and squeezing briefly, still reveling a little in having finally found him. "Let's roll."


	10. Interlude (naming Cas's daemon)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So "Torn And Frayed" was...yeah, and while the next couple of updates should be soon, and focus on Sam between S7 and S8, and on Samandriel and the lengths he went to protect Alfie's daemon from the same torture he suffered, I felt that the boys deserved a break. This is set at some nebulous point not too far in the future when things are fine and dandy again and Cas is sticking around. : )

The fire's well-established now and has settled lazily in to consume the pile of logs in the fireplace, flames stretching high and orange-yellow and blazing out heat. Tsalia's stretched out front of it like a parody of a housecat, Iope reclined against her stomach so she can scamper off if Sam needs her (he's cooking tonight, and she's better than him at remembering what Amelia taught them), and Cas's bird-daemon nestled in the dip between Tsalia's shoulderblades, feathers all fluffed out so he looks like a little white puffball.

"Hey Cas?" Dean drawls, pulling his gaze away from the hypnotic flickering dance of the fire to find Cas, sitting in the armchair with yet another book, that familiar little frown line between his eyes. He looks up at his name though, forehead smoothing out.

"Yes, Dean?"

"What's his name?" Dean asks, nodding towards the daemons, and Cas huffs out a breath, closing the book around his finger to mark his place. Dean feels like they should get him some glasses, just so he could rub under them whenever they ask him apparently difficult questions like this. "C'mon dude, it's not a hard question."

Cas looks embarrassed. "I don't...call him anything."

Dean shoves himself upright. "What? Are you serious? No, c'mon, you were human for a while, _no one_ has a nameless daemon. I mean, you were _married_ , dude, your wife must've asked?"

Cas shrugs awkwardly, looking over at the daemon in question. "She knew I was...different." The bird-daemon rustles his feathers, settling deeper into his living pillow.

"So, what? He's just 'Hey, you?' That's...that's cold Cas, even for you."

"I've never had a daemon before, Dean, it was quite a shock to return to myself and find him still there," Cas says shortly. "And before that, I...just assumed that his name was Gah."

"So he _does_ have a name!"

"No, 'gah' is the Enochian word for 'soul' or 'spirit', I was just unaware of that at the time. It is, essentially, the same as calling him 'hey, you'."

"Well okay, but if it became his name-"

"It seems inappropriate, to call a piece of myself something so trivial."

"So it bothers you? Okay, so let's think of something else."

Cas blinks at him. "Dean, you can't just-"

"Sure I can. I mean, no daemon's born named, right? The parents' daemons name 'em, when the parents name the kid. So, we'll name him. He's...he's like the human bit of you, right? Well that's mostly our fault, so."

Cas manages a bark of laughter, brief but real. "I _was_ capable of doubting Heaven before I met you."

"But you weren't going on benders or visiting brothels or eating pie before you met me, and that's what makes you human."

"If you say so, Dean." But Cas's voice is warm, his expression fond. Dean smiles back at him, because damn right he says so.

"Okay, names!" he declares, after a moment of just basking in the firelight and the smell of cooking and Cas sat across from him, everything just as it should be. "There any other Enochian you like?"

Cas considers this, firelight painting his skin honey and bronze. Sam yells for Iope, asking what else comes after the tomatoes and oregano, and Iope answers that nothing does, you just leave it to simmer. Sam ambles in at about the same time Cas shakes his head.

"There are, but I don't want to name him after angelic things. He's not of Heaven, and neither am I, wholly, any more."

"What are we talking about?" Sam asks, coming round to spawl all his gargantuan limbs over the other couch. The fire makes his hair glint gold.

"We're naming Cas's daemon," Dean says, and Sam blinks, processing this.

"Oh. Doesn't he- huh. Okay."

"Yeah I know, apparently he's just been calling him the Enochian version of 'Hey, you'."

Sam's eyebrows go up. "Okay. Wow. Uh, yeah, that's-"

"Crap," Dean supplies, and Sam shoots him a look.

"I was gonna be a little more tactful that that, but. Yeah."

"You wanna name him after somebody, maybe?" Dean asks, turning back to Cas. "I mean, I dunno, but if you wanted... I know you lost a bunch of people, and-"

"It's a nice thought, Dean," Cas says, "but again, it would be naming him after aspects of Heaven. Also, he's his own...personality, he needs his own name."

Sam's gaint brow is scrunched in thought. "Okay, so what about foreign words?"

"Hmm," Cas allows, eyes going distant again as he thinks it over, sorting through the myriad languages in his head.

Dean looks back over at the daemons, dog-piled together, the flames picking out Tsalia and Iope's fur in different hues and gilding the bird-daemon in molten colours, like a phoenix. Fitting, given Cas's unfortunate habit of dying on them and then popping back up again a little later, though he's been good about sticking around lately. Trying his hand at being human, house and family and daemon and all. A new start, a blank slate, forgetting all the other shit he did and that was done to him. And though it all started with Jimmy's spaniel-daemon trotting at his heels, Dean can't imagine him now without that deadly little bundle of feathers on his shoulder, fluttering and preening and slashing  
monster's faces open while shrieking like a banshee. And all because some crazy lady went for a walk in the woods and found a naked guy lying by the lake.

"Why don't you call him Emmanuel?"

Cas and Sam both turn to look at him, identical expressions of surprise on their faces. 

"I mean, that was you, right? Or an aspect of you, the human you, and now he's gone but that was kind of his daemon too, right? So he's named after you, not Heaven, but also he's named after a dead guy, a good guy, a guy who helped people-"

"That's...huh, that's actually not bad," Sam says, and Dean throws the nearest cushion at him.

"Shut up."

"Emmanuel," Cas says, testing the weight of it on his tongue, and the bird-daemon stirs, bright eyes focusing on him. He flits down off Tsalia's back, hops across the carpet and finally achieves proper liftoff to swoop over into Cas's lap. Cas strokes a crooked finger down his breast. "Emmanuel."

The bird-daemon cocks his head. "God is with us," he translates, matching Cas's careful tone. "It's a good name. It fits." He twists to look at Dean. "Thank you, Dean."

"Uh. No problem. Emmanuel."

Beaks don't really work for smiling but, like Cas, Emmanuel manages to project the sentiment anyway.

"Are you sure?" Cas asks, sounding uncertain now. "We can think about it further, if you want."

"No," Emmanuel says, "I'm sure."

"Well, then," Sam starts, looking torn between having some kind of girly group hug and getting the holy water for a proper baptism, and Dean snorts.

"Glad we sorted that out, then. Honestly Cas, if I hadn't 've asked, would you've just kept calling the poor guy Gar?"

"It's 'gah'," Cas corrects, tone aiming for prissy but mostly just hitting resignation over terrible human pronunciation. "...But most likely yes."

"Be nice to actaully have something to call him now," Tsalia adds, padding up on silent cat's paws, Iope balanced on her back like a jockey.

"What were you calling him?" Sam asks, and she shrugs, making Iope wobble.

"Nothin', really. Felt weird, but he said Gah was temporary so we didn't use it much."

"Emmanuel," Iope says, jumping over onto Sam's couch and scuttling right up to the arm closest to Cas's chair. "Yeah, I like it. Suits you."

"I'm glad you approve," Cas tells her, amused, and she grins at him.

"Alright, enough with the mushy naming ceremony crap," Dean says, and Tsalia laughs at him. "Most important question now is: when're we eating?"

"Soon," Sam says, playing with Iope's tail, winding it round his hand and letting it flow through his fingers. "If you're so eager, go set the table."

"Done and done!" Dean answers promptly, bouncing up of the couch, and goes to do just that.


	11. How To Save A Life (9.03)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise I am actually working on the one about Sam's lost year/time with Amelia, but writing's been...hard these last few months, so that fact that the new eps are actually making me want to write stuff means I seize the opportunity with both hands.

The woman standing over Cas turns at the noise of their entry, and in her hesitation the white bird-daemon tears himself out from under her foot with a screech of pain and the crack of bone from the trapped wing, and twists to throw himself at her ankle, beak and both claws drawing blood and a faint white light. She kicks him away with a snarl and, apparently in retaliation, plunges the blade in her hand straight into Cas’s chest.

Cas makes a horrible shocked noise, but the bird is silent; his one good wing beats against the floor for a moment, then goes still.

(Dean remembers Iope faltering in her dash towards them, her wide eyes as she slumped into the mud and pushed herself back up, struggling to turn, to see, while Dean ran forward to catch Sam as he fell.)

Apparently, reapers have got juice. Tsalia goes for his dropped sword and gets slammed across the room, hissing and scrabbling at the wood. The only other sword within reach is _in Cas’s fucking chest_ , and Dean’s pretty sure you’re not supposed to take weapons out of stab wounds in case they’re all that’s holding back the fatal damage - but there’ll be a hell of a lot more fatal damage if he doesn’t kill the bitch right freaking now. 

(It makes a terrible sucking noise as it comes free, resists, grates against Cas’s ribs, and Dean apologises to him silently and darts a glance at the bird-daemon, still there, a splash of white feathers on the dark floor.)

His first instinct, once she’s down, is to scoop the bird-daemon up and put him in Cas’s lap, but that won’t help any and it might just cause more trauma. “ _Dean_ ,” Tsalia says, desperate, reared up on the arm of the chair and peering at Cas’s slack face, searching for a sign of life, and Dean runs to her.

Cas won’t wake. Dean calls his name, shakes him, feels him still warm under his hands and that has to mean something, right? But there’s no pulse under his frantic fingers, no rattle of breath as Cas mumbles that he should stop shouting, and the gashes across his chest and that central red puncture are bleeding sluggishly at best.

He backs away, suddenly can’t bear to be touching him, to make it real, but Tsalia stays, straining forward, body one long, still, desperate line as she waits for a miracle. Sam pushes himself to his feet behind them and Dean turns to him, away from that slumped body. “Sam, he’s gone.”

Tsalia makes a low noise and nudges forward, nose grazing Cas’s jaw, cheek, right where Dean teased him about his beard all those months ago. Dean feels it like a shock, unexpected and powerful, but muted, like it should have knocked him back a step or two but instead just makes him clench his jaw and flare his fingers, restless, thwarted. Sam walks forward like he can’t believe it either, slow and stunned, and draws a deep breath like he’s holding back tears, shoulders squaring-

-and it’s not Sam at all.

The hand he extends over Cas’s injuries glows, warm like lamplight after a long day, and Tsalia’s stillness is a different kind now, as tense and furiously hopeful as Dean, her claws rasping out and catching on the chair arm, over and over like the beat of their hearts. _C’mon, c’mon, please..._

The last of the blood vanishes, wounds closed, and Sam staggers back and into the wall, braces himself and only half-succeeds, and Dean starts towards him but then there’s that first soft, startled intake of breath behind him. Sam wobbles, and then falls like he’s been poleaxed, and hopefully that’s just Ezekiel punching out for the day but what if-

“Dean,” Cas says, low and garbled but definite, and Iope’s awake and cradling Sam’s head, smoothing his hair, so Dean goes to Cas, Tsalia dropping down to come and press against his side, purring loud enough to make Cas blink at her, almost frowning. There’s a scrabble and a flutter and the bird-daemon crashes into Cas’s lap, and Cas cups him gently in both hands and smooths his rumpled feathers, looking at Dean questioningly as if, as ever, he has the answers to the universe.

Sam comes to and scrambles to get himself upright, Iope squeaking indignantly as he almost crushes her against the wall and he apologises, one hand burying itself in her fur as he stares at Cas incredulously. “Cas. You’re okay?” 

Cas seems to consider this, glancing round like he’s assessing things, uncertain. Dean is too busy marveling at the tiny beat of the pulse in his neck, the visible movement of his chest ( _very_ visible, since his shirt’s still open), the obvious life in him in contrast to the slumped stillness of five minutes earlier. “Never do that again.” 

Cas stares up at him, still bemused but trusting, so trusting (too trusting, or that damn bitch would never have been able to-). “Alright. But I’m confused - I know she stabbed me, but um, I don’t...appear to be dead.”

The bird-daemon clicks his beak, nipping at Cas’s thumb. “We didn’t _die_ ,” he says impatiently. “I’m still here, aren’t I? Not all stab wounds are fatal.”

“They are in the chest,” Cas answers, looking down at him and absently freeing a hand to touch briefly to the site of the wound. When he lifts his eyes again, it’s to Dean, curiosity that will quickly become suspicion if Dean doesn’t do something. Sam, too, is looking baffled, his interest in an explanation almost audibly increasing with every passing moment. Their combined expectation is like a laser boring into the side of his head.

Dean starts with what they know - that Sam took a lucky shot - and then Tsalia pipes up that they made a deal with the reaper for Cas’s life, and Dean drops a hand down to stroke her ruff in gratitude. It explains everything - the absence of Cas’s injuries, the negligible fatality of the stab wound - so neatly it might as well be true.

“But you still killed her,” Iope says flatly, and it’s hard to say if she’s being judgey or not. Dean shrugs expansively - she hurt Sam and killed Cas, why wouldn’t he?

“So you lied,” the bird-daemon says reprovingly, hopping up onto Cas’s shoulder, and Cas is smiling, reaching up to tap him on the beak and hush him.

“I do that,” Dean tells him, too swamped by relief and the giddiness of the adrenaline rush to be surprised they’re talking to each other; aside from the begging them to help Cas the first time they met, the bird-daemon’s been remarkably reticent to talk to Sam and Dean, and pretty damn closemouthed around Tsalia and Iope.

Sam is still looking uncertain, but Dean knows he can brush it off by telling him to shut his brain off already, what, does Sam think he would make that up? (even the thought makes his stomach twinge uncomfortably though, so he hopes it doesn't actually come to that). Cas, however, is still smiling, soft and fond and apparently delighted that Dean not only saved his ass but restored it to tip-top condition too. It’s real heartwarming to know he advocates for Dean double-crossing reapers to save his life (Dean would do it though, for real, if he had to, although if Cas gets his fool ass impaled again too soon Dean might leave him dead for a few minutes to teach him a lesson. Not that that will happen, since Cas is coming back to the bunker with them right now and leaning how to use a damn gun).

“Okay then,” Dean says, going over to offer Sam a hand up, “let’s get this show on the road. Sam, you okay to walk? No dizziness, concussion...?”

“I’m fine,” Sam objects, shaking off the hand Dean’s put to his forehead and rolling his eyes.

Cas stand up too and roots around until he finds a t-shirt, shrugging out of his shirt to pull it on. “Is that a tattoo?” Dean demands, zeroing in on the patch of ink low on one side of Cas’s stomach, and Cas lifts the hem of the t-shirt to show him.

“Yes. I got it yesterday, it’s Enochian; it hides me from the angels.” He throws a glance at the body of the reaper. “But not, sadly, from anything else.”

“Yeah, alright there candygram, put your damn stomach away, no one wants to see that,” Dean says, waving a hand, and Cas obediently drops the t-shirt and pulls the shirt back on. Sam is rolling his eyes again; Dean pretends not to notice. “At least it’s not a tramp stamp, I guess.”

Sam snickers, and Cas’s brow furrows. “What-?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” Dean says, chivvying them both towards the door.


	12. Just Keep Swimming (the year between S7 and S8)

Sam stares helplessly round the room like Dean might suddenly materialize from thin air, or maybe even from the disgusting black gunk Dick left behind, but he knows Crowley’s right - they’re on their own. They’re stuck in the main Roman Enterprises headquarters, now visibly attacked and defaced with black ooze - not to mention full of decapitated bodies - with no friends to help them and the car stuck through a sign, and the police sirens are getting louder every second they stay.

“Iope, c’mon, we gotta go,” he says, holding a hand out for her and already turning, and she bounds over and grabs it, her momentum swinging her up to his shoulder as surely as the upward pull of his arm, and he’s off and running, broken glass crackling under his feet and shoes slip-sliding in the black smears. Iope coils her tail around his throat and directs him back the way they came, almost strangling him when they take a couple of wrong turns, and then the exit door bursts open and they’re out, and the car’s surrounded by broken glass but intact and not too far away.

Not for the first time Sam regrets that Dean insists on driving such a recognizable model, but he doesn’t even want to think about Dean’s face when ( _when_ ) he comes back and finds Sam’s left it for the cops to impound, so he wrenches the door open and throws himself in behind the wheel, Iope tumbling down onto the passenger seat and jumping up to press her little hands to the cracked window.

“Move!” she hisses, in a growl so like Dean Sam misses the ignition entirely on first try, but he manages to slot the key home a second or two later and the engine coughs and splutters into life, then chokes on a roar as Sam floors the pedal and forces it backwards and out of the sign its embedded in. The smashed windshield makes him feel horribly exposed, wind tearing at his face and hair as he spins the car left and faces it at the exit, and it’s even worse when he gets going, not to mention the constant terror that at any moment half a dozen cop cars could pull up and start shooting at him.

They do pass a flock of police cars along the way, and several of them flash at him and peel away to follow, but he manages to lose them by recklessly twisting and turning down sideroads and through parking lots, Iope hunched in his lap with her fingers fisted in his shirttails in an extremely encouraging vote of confidence in his driving skills. 

They stop at a ramshackle little autoshop that’s far too similar to Singer Salvage for a replacement windshield, and Sam pays in cash and a week’s assistant labour, though it’s really nothing more than a few hours worth of tinkering with those rustbuckets not yet too broken down to function. The owner’s another old guy with stained and worn overalls and a truly epic mustache, but he asks no questions and offers Sam his squeaky, dangerously spring-filled couch to sleep on, and a share of his surprisingly good cooking. Sam spends half a night on the couch being poked in multiple places and trying not to move lest he set off the spring symphony, before relocating to the back seat of the car, which is a million times more comfortable and smells like leather and gun oil and home.

*

It’s only when he passes the WELCOME TO SOUTH DAKOTA! sign and realises where he’s headed, instinctively and without conscious thought, and then he has to pull sloppily over (somewhere in the back of his head Dean tuts at him: _Jeez Sammy, watch the undercarriage!_ ) and breathe into his folded arms, the steering wheel hard against his temple, and acknowledge he has nowhere to go. Iope scrambles up onto the dashboard and pets his hair, crooning the same crap they picked up from Dean when they were little - “Hey Sammy no, don’t cry, it’ll be okay, we’ll figure it out” - and Sam swallows against the raw feeling in his throat, the wetness sticking his eyelashes together, and tries not to wish too hard that he was five again and crying into his pillow about something childish and stupid while Dean stroked clumsily at his hair and promised to make it all alright again.

“That’s really not helping,” he tells her finally, voice thick, and she makes a low, pained noise. 

“I know.”

*

Jody Mills opens the door, takes one look at him, and says quietly, “Oh Sam.” 

He’s vaguely ashamed of the way he crumples into her arms, but she’s his last link to Bobby, to family, and she’s just as calm and accepting and unflappable. She doesn’t ask questions, just shows him up to her spare room and says she hopes he likes meatballs for supper. Her toucan-daemon Averik has a brief conference with Iope on the dresser, then bobs his head at Sam and returns to Jody, and Iope comes back to settle in Sam’s lap where he’s sat on the edge of the bed. He strokes her absently, her tail wound around his wrist, and thinks about how in another universe Jody and Bobby might have been able to make a go of it, about how Dean might still be here, about Cas and whether he’s with Dean wherever Dean is (he must be, he’d never leave Dean alone; even if he’s not quite right anymore, keeping the both of them safe has become a central tenet of Cas’s existence, one he’s proved he’ll defy Heaven itself to follow), and whether Cas maybe knows a way to get them out.

“Castiel?” he tries, soft, just in case, and isn’t surprised when he doesn’t get an answer, though he’s not hugely reassured either. It’s still not definitive proof Cas is with Dean, after all; Cas has openly expressed a preference to answer to Dean, even if it was born out of guilt and a desire not to see what he’d brought back from the Cage that wasn’t fully Sam. “Just, if you get this, and you’re with Dean...keep him safe for me, okay? And- and try and find a way back here, man, cause wherever you are, it can’t be worse than Hell, right? And you got us both out of there, so...so anything else should be easy. I don’t care if it takes time, okay, just come back safe. Both of you.” He pauses, then adds, feeling a little stupid, “uh, amen.”

He stays at Jody’s for the best part of two weeks, sleeping in a real bed and eating home-cooked food and wandering aimlessly around Sioux Falls when Jody’s out at work and the house is too quiet. Occasionally he gets recognised and told people are sorry for his loss, that Bobby seemed nice, that they were sorry to see him go. It’s all bullshit (and that’s what the Dean in the back of his head says with a sneer, low and furious, _They just though he was some drunk kook, like fuck they’re ‘sorry for his loss’, they’re probably just glad he ain’t gonna mulch any more of his neighbours in the middle of the night_ ), but in a way it’s nice to know they at least noticed he’s gone. No one comes up to tell him how they’re thinking of him after the loss of his brother.

“If they did get zapped back to Purgatory with Dick...well, it’s a kind of Hell,” Iope says quietly, after about the tenth unanswered prayer. “It probably will take them...a while to get out.”

“Yeah,” Sam agrees, running a hand through his hair and taking a deep breath to quiet the unease lurking low in his gut. “Of course.”

He takes the car up to Bobby’s near the end of the second week and tries not to treat it like a pilgrimage. Jody had told him gently when asked that nothing’s happened to the property, no one’s bought it or anything, and that she’s pretty sure no one will because it’d be too much work to clear it up and start over when there are empty houses closer to town. Sam leaves the car at the gate and walks in under the Singer Salvage sign, stopping to take it all in. The cars are all still there, rusting quietly away under the open sky, and if he keeps the house in the corner of his eye he can pretend it’s still whole, that Bobby might come out at any minute and scold him for standing around like a poleaxed chipmunk where there’s shit to get done. Eventually he gets up the courage to turn and look at it properly, blackened and broken open and empty, like a harbinger of its owner’s doom. The wallpaper inside is charred and smoke-damaged, the carefully-labeled phones melted and dead, all the books reduced to ash. The staircase to the cellar doesn’t look like it’ll support his weight anymore, but Iope drops down and picks her way past the wreck of the washing machines and all Bobby’s other detritus, and reports when she comes back that the panic room seems perfectly intact. 

For one crazy moment Sam imagines staying here, in the closest thing to a real home he’d ever had, sleeping on the little cot he’d last been tied to as Dean and Bobby tried to detox him, safe from demons and any other crap that tried to come after him, and maybe trying to pick up Bobby’s side of the business - he has his own phones, he can be an FBI supervisor and a Homeland Security officer and whatever else they need him to be - while he waits for Dean to come back. He’s knows it’s stupid even as he thinks it, squatting like a hobo in the ruins of someone else’s house, living in a bunker like some kind of paranoid whacko - despite the fact that hey, he _is_ a whacko and he has the scar to prove it, and the ‘paranoid’ is totally justified - but it’s nice, for a second, to think about just saying “fuck it” and ending the road here, leaving the car to rust with the others and curling up in the remnants of Bobby’s house and turning his back on life, helping other hunters on the end of the phone but otherwise leaving it all behind.

“Come on,” Iope says softly, reaching up to wrap her little fingers around his and tugging him away, and he lets her lead him back to the car.

*

He doesn’t mean to drive to Rufus’s in one go, but somehow he does, zoning out to the rumble of the car on the road, familiar and, in its own way, comforting.

“We’ll, uh, we’ll be out of your hair tomorrow,” he’d told Jody the day before as he helped her prepare supper, and she’d stopped chopping to turn and look at him, long and careful, and then nodded.

“Okay kiddo, but don’t you dare think you’ve outstayed your welcome.”

“No,” he’d assured her, smiling, “you’ve been amazing Jody, thank you. I just...need a change of scene.”

“Alright,” she’d said, and unspoken had been everything she’d been kind enough not to mention. She’d pulled him down to press a kiss to the crown of his head the next morning, and whispered “You take care of yourselves,” just loud enough to hear, and he’d had to fight down a sudden upwelling of something too distant be be properly called grief that his mom had never had the chance to do this, and the much sharper sorrow that Jody will never get to say that to her own kid.

It’s something like one in the morning when he arrives at the cabin, and he crashes out on the first bed he finds and sleeps like the dead. It’s only in the morning that he realises this is - was - Dean’s bed when they holed up here to wait for his leg to heal, and if he turns his face into the pillow in the futile hope that some remnant of his brother might still linger, there’s no one to see.

Rufus’s cabin is another house empty because its owner had allied himself with them once too often. His stuff, at least, is in tact, but Bobby took the best of it back to his. There is, Sam reflects, a whole trail of lives either ruined or destroyed thanks to them, and Rufus and Bobby and Jody are only the more recent ones. Kevin is another, and somewhere his mom’s probably going out of her mind with worry, but Hell isn’t exactly gonna be anyone’s first guess, and Sam himself has no way of getting him out; his soul has been passed around and battered so much he doubts any demon would trade it for a used car, never mind a freaking _prophet_. Cas is another one they tore up and left in their wake, but Sam doesn’t even know where the fuck _he_ is and Cas apparently can’t tell him. And Dean...it seems logical to believe that he and Cas are in Purgatory, together, with Dick and all the other monster souls Cas coughed back up, but without Cas or Death or Crowley and his ritual Sam can’t help him either, and in any case he might be wrong and Dean could be anywhere, Limbo or Hell or even Heaven.

Which just leaves Sam, alone.

And sure, he’d like to help other hunters, like Bobby used to, but he’d also kind of like to never hear from or see one ever again, or any civilian either, cause then maybe they can avoid being dragged into something that’ll literally or figuratively tear them apart.

Rufus’s cabin is isolated and quiet, but like Sioux Falls it’s too full of ghosts, and Sam leaves after a week, surprised to find himself missing the road and the familiarity of the car around him. He doesn’t remember feeling particularly homesick at college, but then he’d had people around him, and the full expanse of a new horizon open ahead.

He leaves the box of phones on the bed, and doesn’t notice until he’s several thousand miles down the road.

*

It’s hard to ignore the little stories in the papers, disappearances and weird deaths and strings of coincidences that can’t be coincidence, but it gets easier with practice. He cuts up all the credit cards and takes whatever little jobs he can, fixing cars and cleaning pools and unblocking sinks, mopping floors and washing glasses. Three more months pass, four months since Dean went missing, the magic number, and he doesn’t show. Sam’s personal cell falls out his pocket and into a bucket of water; his other cell runs quietly out of battery at the bottom of his duffel. He rebuffs the women (and the occasional man) who hit on him in bars and after he fixes their shit and makes it run smooth, and stays in towns only long enough to get bored.

Then something runs out in front of the car on a back road in Texas, and he doesn’t swerve fast enough, feels the impact like an extension of his own body. For one heart-stopping moment he thinks it was a daemon, that he’s gonna find some rambler collapsed on the side of the road, but it’s just a dog, which whines and strains to get away when he crouches down beside it, but goes limp and defeated in his arms.

The woman behind the reception desk is already creeped out when he gets there, staring warily at Iope - who ran ahead in their haste, too far ahead for normal people - and too quick to be pessimistic about the dog, her little bird-daemon fluttering uselessly around the room, but the vet is cool and calm and capable and her rat-daemon is already examining the dog by the time the receptionist chases him out, equal parts angry and scared.

He can’t say why he stays, why he feels so responsible, except that this is one life he fucked up that he can at least now take responsibility for, and maybe even help fix.


End file.
